Every step. Every contact. Every payment. Leave nothing to chance.
This page is your complete guide to running your first curated group trip. Use Ireland as your template — every other trip you ever run follows this exact same process. Master this once and you have it forever.
Before you plan a single detail, understand exactly what you are selling and why it works.
You are not selling flights and hotel rooms. You are selling the feeling of being completely looked after in one of the most emotionally resonant destinations in the world — by someone who genuinely cares about the experience.
Clients are buying your taste, your contacts, your judgment, and the relief of not having to figure it all out themselves. That is worth a significant premium over booking it independently.
Eight nights. A clear narrative arc from capital to coast. Every stop chosen for story, beauty, and logistical ease.
Airport welcome. Check into a Georgian-era boutique hotel. Evening welcome dinner — this is where the group forms. Day 2: walking tour of the city, Trinity College, Book of Kells, a proper Irish pub lunch, free afternoon.
Drive south. Glendalough monastic site. Arrive at Huntington Castle for a uniquely Irish experience — private castle with history, atmosphere, and stories. Optional estate tour and evening fire gathering.
Drive west. Cliffs of Moher in the morning before the crowds. Lunch in Doolin. The Burren limestone landscape in the afternoon — genuinely otherworldly. Arrive in Galway by evening.
Galway city day — markets, music, the Latin Quarter. Day 7 is the Connemara loop: mountains, bogs, Kylemore Abbey, the wild Atlantic coast. This is the day that makes everyone fall in love with Ireland.
Final farewell breakfast together. Transfer to Dublin or Shannon airport. This morning matters — the goodbye sets the emotional memory of the whole trip. Make it warm. Make it last.
This is everything you do, in what order, and why. Follow this sequence and nothing will fall through the cracks.
This is the most important phase. Nothing moves forward until these things are confirmed. Start here even before you create the public trip page.
Now that costs are confirmed, you can price properly and go public. This is when you create the trip page and begin building desire through content.
The launch is a moment, not a drawn-out process. Your waitlist gets first access — 48 hours before anything goes public. Send this email with clear urgency and a direct booking link.
Once you have confirmed minimum group, contact every supplier to lock in bookings. Nothing is booked until you have confirmed group size. This protects you from committing to costs before income is secured.
Your job on this trip is to be the host. Not the tour guide, not the logistics manager, not the problem solver — you have set all of that up already. Your job is to make people feel looked after and create the memories that they will talk about for years.
The 3 days after you return are the most commercially important of the entire year. Act quickly while emotion is at its peak.
Every person involved in this trip. What they need from you. How to reach them. Claude can draft every single one of these emails.
Money is the part that feels most daunting. Here is the complete payment flow from first deposit to final payout — step by step.
When a client confirms they want to book, you send them a Stripe payment link for their deposit. This is non-refundable after 14 days (this protects you from last-minute drop-outs before you have committed supplier costs).
TravelJoy sends an automated reminder 8 weeks out. Balance = full trip price minus the $1,000 deposit already paid. If the client does not pay by the due date, chase within 48 hours. Cancel the booking after 7 days of non-payment.
Once the balance is paid, offer optional extras. Send as a simple list: airport transfer, room upgrade, photography session, welcome gift box. Create a separate Stripe link for each upsell item. No pressure — optional and elegant.
Stripe transfers to your Bluevine account on a rolling 2-day or 7-day schedule depending on your settings. When receiving from international clients, Wise may be more cost-effective for large international transfers. Keep a separate trip account in QuickBooks to track per-trip profitability.
Once you hit minimum 6 bookings and have collected their deposits, you can safely pay supplier deposits. Never pay supplier deposits before you have confirmed client bookings. Use Wise for Irish properties to avoid international transfer fees.
Most Irish properties require full payment 30 days before arrival. Pay from the client balance payments you have already collected. By this point your clients have paid their balances and you should be holding the full trip revenue.
Keep a small trip float for minor unexpected costs: welcome drinks, a spontaneous experience, a tip for exceptional service. Budget $200–300 total for this. Separate business card for trip expenses only — makes QuickBooks clean and easy.
Once everything is paid and the trip is over, what remains is your profit. At 8 people at $5,000 each, after all supplier costs of approximately $10,000, your net is around $12,000+. Log this in QuickBooks as trip income.
Every email you need for this trip from first supplier outreach to post-trip follow-up. Claude can personalise any of these — just paste the template and ask it to customise.
First email to any hotel, castle, or experience provider
Sent to your waitlist when bookings open
Sent immediately after deposit is received
Sent 8 weeks before departure
Sent 4 weeks before travel
Sent within 3 days of returning
Real costs. Real margins. Know your numbers before you set your price.
This section is not optional. Running a group trip without these protections exposes you personally. Read every word.
Every booking must have a signed booking terms document. Include: what is covered, cancellation policy, that flights are excluded, your liability limits, force majeure clause. TravelJoy can store signed documents.
Make travel insurance mandatory for all clients. State this clearly on the trip page and in the booking terms. You are not responsible for medical emergencies, cancellations, or personal losses.
Every supplier payment, every hotel confirmation, every receipt from the trip float. Store in Google Drive. QuickBooks for accounting. Your accountant will need these at tax time.
WorldVia’s $2M E&O policy covers your bookings as a registered agent. Make sure you book qualifying elements through their system to activate this cover. Speak to WorldVia member support about how this applies to your group trip specifically.
Never put your own money at risk for a trip that has not been sold yet. Wait until you have client deposits before committing to supplier deposits. This is the most important financial protection rule.
Every supplier conversation must be confirmed in writing. “We spoke on the phone and you said...” has no legal weight. An email confirmation saying “as agreed” has everything.
Your policy should mirror your supplier cancellation terms. If your hotel takes 30 days to refund, your client refund window must be at least 30 days. Mismatched timelines cost you money.
You are responsible for the itinerary and supplier coordination. You are not responsible for airline delays, weather, personal medical issues, or circumstances outside your control. Your booking terms should state this clearly. Ask Claude to help you draft these.
Offer these to confirmed bookers only. Never in the initial sales conversation. One email, sent 4–6 weeks before departure. Optional, elegant, no pressure.
+$45–55 pp
+$75–150 pp
+$35 pp
+$95 pp
+$120 pp
+$22 pp
+$10 or free Patreon
+$120–160 pp
How Claude integrates into every phase of the Ireland trip — from first supplier email to post-trip content.
Ask Claude to research boutique hotels in each destination, find contact details, and draft personalised outreach emails for each one. What would take 4 hours takes 30 minutes.
Share your raw quotes with Claude. Ask it to build a comparison table showing per-person costs at 6, 8, and 10 people. Helps you confirm your pricing is profitable before you go public.
Give Claude the bare facts and ask it to write your trip page description. You edit the voice. This alone saves 3–4 hours of staring at a blank screen.
Every template above can be personalised by Claude in 60 seconds. Just paste the template, tell it the client name, dates, and any specific details. Claude writes a version that sounds personal, not copy-pasted.
Use Claude Cowork to organise all trip documents in your Ireland folder. It can rename files consistently, create the pre-departure pack PDF from your notes, and build a day-by-day itinerary document automatically.
Give Claude your rough notes, photos, and memories from the trip. It drafts Patreon essays, TikTok captions, and Instagram content for the post-trip campaign that sells next year’s trip.
Claude does not just help with individual tasks. With Cowork connected to your Google Drive, Notion supplier tracker, and Google Calendar, it sees the whole picture. Ask it: “What do I need to do for the Ireland trip this week?” — and it will check your files, your calendar, your tracker, and give you a prioritised list. This is the difference between having an assistant and just having a chatbot.
Every supplier for the Ireland trip in one place. Claude can update this when you ask it to.
Every supplier to contact. Every email to send. Every payment to process. Every protection to put in place. This is your blueprint. Every other curated trip you ever run follows this exact same template.